Wooden pallets have long been used for handling material. Wooden pallets are relatively cheap, simple, and durable. However, wooden pallets are relatively heavy and require costly hand labor in their fabrication.
Generally, plastic pallets can be easily molded and are relatively stronger and lighter in weight than wooden pallets. Furthermore, in general, plastic pallets are more durable than wooden pallets.
A number of plastic pallets have been proposed. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 3,951,078 discloses a unitary plastic pallet.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,051,787 and 3,938,448 both disclose plastic pallets having top and bottom halves which are heat-fused or adhesively connected together.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,843,976 discloses a plastic pallet including a pair of identical frame members or decks that are interconnected by specially designed connectors. The connectors include flexible tangs that have barbs which engage abutments on the frame members that are recessed below the exposed surfaces thereof so that the connectors can be snap-fitted onto the frame members.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,597,338 discloses a plastic pallet having identical upper and lower pallet halves. Each pallet half is formed with a rigid rectangular load-supporting platform having symmetrically disposed rows of supporting posts and latching leg assemblies projecting vertically from one surface of its platform. The legs on one pallet half can be inserted into posts of the other to snap-lock the two halves together. Spaced skirt portions along each edge of the platforms engage those of the other pallet half to define forklift tine receiving openings in each side of the pallet.
While a number of plastic pallets have been proposed, these proposed solutions have not been widely accepted and there remains a need for a plastic pallet that is relatively inexpensive, light in weight, durable, capable of supporting heavy loads, is easy to assemble and disassemble, and has a minimum number of parts.